Here's why fad diets like gluten-free are bad for you

The
Subway Diet was extremely successful when it came on the scene in
the early 2000s.Subway
/ Facebook

The INSIDER Summary:

• Fad diets lack the nutrients we need to
stay healthy.• These diets can ruin your metabolism and actually
make you sick.
• There is not a magic formula or diet to
lose weight—just eat healthy.

Nowadays, people will do anything to lose weight.Fad dietshave become
all the rage, with celebrities and magazines endorsing them.
Losing weight can be hard, but trust me, the cookie diet is not
the answer. As a nutrition student, these diets got me feeling
some type of way. Here are some fad diets that are actually
bad for you:

Gluten-free/low-carb diets

Gluten is a protein y'all.
If you are allergic to gluten or if you have Celiac disease,
then yes, you should not eat gluten. However, there's nothing
in gluten that will make you gain weight. The reason
people lose weight on gluten-free diets is because they switch
from eating an excess of highly refined carbohydrates to a
moderate amount of whole grains.

In terms of low carbohydrate diets, they do help you lose
weight, but in the long run, it slows down your metabolism. For
each gram of glycogen stored, 3-4 grams of water is stored.
Therefore, the weight you initially lose is water weight. After
a little while, though, your body starts to go into starvation
mode, and your body starts to adjust to under-consuming
carbohydrates and will rely on less of them. This, in turn,
slows down your metabolism.

Not your grandma's
cookies.Sarah Schmalbruch /
INSIDER

The cookie diet

If you could eatcookiesall day and
still lose weight, would you? Sounds almost too good to be
true. Dr. Sanford Siegelcreated this diet in 2007 — the
idea is that you eat a 60-calorie "specialized-formulated
cookie" every two hours, and then a 500-700 calorie meal so
you'll never feel hungry and get to eat dessert. This diet
works for some people because you are eating a
calorie-restricted diet, but you're missing out on all the
important nutrients food has to offer. Plus, these aren't your
grandma's homemade chocolate chip cookies...

The HCG diet

This new fad diet includes taking HCG, a special
hormone that only activates on a extremely low-calorie diet. In
the first five days of the diet, you eat high-fat foods and
start taking the drops of hormones. Then you drop to a
500-calorie diet for 40 days — which is equivalent to a bagel
with cream cheese once a day. If this doesn't scream unhealthy,
I don't know what does. FYI, in multiple studies, these hormones have
proved not to help in weight loss.

The vision diet

For this diet, you have to wear blue glasses to make your
food look unappealing so you won't want to eat it. Although
these blue glasses are incredibly stylish, this diet did not
prove to be successful and just sounds completely ridiculous.

The fruitarian diet

Yup, you guessed it — on this diet you only eat fruit.
Sounds healthy right? Even thoughfruitis packed with
nutrients, you can have too much of a good thing. Ashton
Kutcher actually tried this diet before a movie andended up in the
hospital, so we recommend you stray away from this
one.

If you're tired of fad diets, we have good news

Although it's really tempting to hop on the fad diet
train, there really isn't a magic formula or specific way of
eating to lose weight. From my studies and talking with other
nutritional professionals, my best advice is eat when you're
hungry, stop when you're full, and enjoy a balanced variety of
foods. Just keep in mind, not everyone's healthy weight is a
size double zero. The media has completely skewed society's
idea of an ideal body, but an ideal body is the one you feel
happiest in.